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BoomWhacker Mysteries in First Grade: Part One

For the first time in quite a few years I am teaching 1st grade music in the afternoon again. I still have one section of first that meets in the morning though. I knew when I looked at the schedule over the summer that I would have a huge difference in classroom behavior with my 10 a.m. class and my 1:30 classes.  Unfortunately I was still unprepared for exactly how ACTIVE tired 1st graders need to be! So frustration ensued for both me and the kids as I tried to find something, anything really that would help them learn music and stay focused.

Sometime around January I hit on it! (Yes it took me half the year to find something that worked)

BOOMWHACKER MYSTERIES!!!

My first graders LOOOOOOVE the BoomWhackers and they behave well with them because they don’t want to lose their turn to play. I focus on mastering basic rhythms in first grade. So BoomWhackers work nicely and I get a little iconic note reading worked on as well.

What is a BoomWhacker Mystery? Well, it’s a bit of Name That Tune and ear training with a little story telling worked in.

What I did:

1. Prepping the song for the SMARTboard. I created a square and a rectangle (twice as big as the square) and saved them in the “My Content” gallery in Notebook. Then I took the song Mary Had a Little Lamb and notated the first half of it iconically using my square and rectangle color coded to match the BoomWhackers.

2. Prepping the students. The next week I told the kids that I was getting these mysterious emails from the “BoomWhacker Master” challenging me to figure out a song on the Boomwhackers. All I had was the colored squares and I couldn’t quite figure out how to use Boomwhackers with that. I couldn’t play all the BoomWhackers on my own anyway. What I really needed I told them was some other people to help me out. The excitement in the room was palpable! The kids couldn’t wait to get started.

3. Figuring out the song. I would pull the Notebook file up and we discussed whether we needed the big or little red BoomWhacker to play this. So we talked a bit about high/low on the BoomWhackers and in the icons. We also had to figure out why some shapes where squares and others were rectangles. Each student would then get a BoomWhacker. I had like colors sit together. We would play the song through once and see if we could figure out what song it was. Some classes got it right away. If not, we would rotate to the next color of BoomWhacker and play it again. (This kept the kids who played the less frequently used pitches from complaining and made it more interesting to play the song repeatedly.) I served as the “conductor” and pointed at the the icons on the board to keep us all together and in rhythm. All classes figured out the song by the time each child had played all the colors.

4. Figuring out the end of the song. Now here’s the real kicker! Once the kids knew what the song was they quickly figured out that the whole song was not there. Luckily the “BoomWhacker Master” had given us a few extra icons to use so we could finish out the song. I was concerned my kids would not be able to maintain the focus to figure out the rest of the piece but for the most part they were so invested by this point that they kept working till we got it done. We would sing the song and listen carefully to decide if the next note was moving up, down or repeated to narrow down our choices. Then we would try our test note on the BoomWhackers to see if it sounded right.

5. Proving we had it to the BoomWhacker Master. I told the kids the email I got from the BoomWhacker Master stipulated that we had to prove somehow that we knew the song and could play it correctly. So we decided to make a video and post it on our school’s Schooltube.com page. I let the kids be the “conductor” for the video. Of course once we got the video posted we had to watch all the other first graders to see if they figured it out as well.

All of this took about 3 or 4 music classes. And as soon as we had gotten our congratulatory email from the BoomWhacker Master the kids wanted to know if I had gotten another one!

Happiness is…….

Having 2nd graders run up to you at the end of a class and BEG you to let them keep listening to recordings of the orchestra instruments instead of going to their next class!

I’m REALLY uncomfortable! I must be learning….something.

Every year there’s something that just floors me and is SOOOOO huge that I just want to take a nap and hope it goes away. During my first few years of teaching it was getting an elementary Christmas Concert together. Then a few years later it was pulling the high school musical together. Then a few years after that it was starting up my classroom website.  This year it’s getting our district technology plan together.  All of these things are so overwhelmingly large!!!! There are so many different directions they could go. So many ideas to consider. So many people to organize. It all makes my head spin. 

You see, I’m a detail girl and large projects often have more details than I can wrap my head around. So I pick an area and start to focus. Often in the first year of tackling a project I end up going back and re-doing something I thought I completed early on because I didn’t quite have a strong grasp of all the variables. When I began the  elementary Christmas concert I didn’t realize how much time it would take to get 1st graders to sing a song with 4 verses nicely.  I moved on to the 2nd verse too quickly and had to go back a re-teach the first verse after the 3rd verse. When I did the high school musical I didn’t plan for costumes early enough and had to spend quite a few afternoons (before rehearsal) driving around the countryside looking for dresses from the local theater companies. This year with the tech plan I’m so new that I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong YET but I sure I’ll find something shortly.

I need to learn to accept that I can’t do everything right the first time every time. I find myself thinking, “I’ve been an educator for 14 years now. I should know how to do all this stuff – even if it’s brand new to me.” Just like I remember thinking, “I should know how to plan a Christmas Concert! I’ve been learning this for the last 4 years of college!” during my first year of teaching. Maybe the underlying thought here for me is more along the lines of: “I’m pretty smart, I can figure most things out. Why isn’t this easier!?!”

So this feeling right here, this feeling of frustration, unpreparedness, anger, and confusion, this feeling is one I need to remember. I feel like I’m doing this all by myself and there’s no one to help. Even though there are lots of people I can ask questions, I don’t even know which questions to ask them! I need help but I don’t know what help I need. So I just need to get busy so I can find the questions to ask.  But I’m still really angry that this is the best way to go about this for right now – it’s messy and non-linear and seems like it might possibly be a total waste of my time.

That feeling right there is how my students students feel when I ask them to research a composer or try to find their singing voice.  That’s how my fellow teachers feel when they get a new tool like a Smartboard or a projector. That’s how my administration feels they learn about a new tool like a blog or a wiki.

So folk,s when I say I know how you feel…..I really mean it. I understand that anger and frustration but we have to push through it to get to the other side. I’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other in the areas I’m struggling with and I’ll do my best to support you as you do the same.  And when it’s all said and done we’ll both be better educators and learners because of it.

Trampling Over Old Boundaries

boundaries by gordmckenna I teach in a rural area where 10 years ago I couldn’t have dreamed of bringing real people working in the music world to my elementary students.  My school district can’t afford to pay people out to us or to take the students to the people.  The best I could hope for was to find a video that I could use in class.  Well NO MORE!

This weekend I went to Gear Fest 09 a FREE event sponsored by Sweetwater Music.  I found out about this wonderful weekend on Facebook. I recently spearheaded the purchase of a new mixer for our church and we bought it from Sweetwater. So I did a little search for them on Facebook because I liked their customer service so much.  Once I found them I became a “fan” of them.  So a few weeks ago they began announcing Gear Fest.  I checked it out and decided to go.

Upon arriving I set out to see what the lay of the land was and I discovered  so many great things i could do! We visited the tents first. In the tents Sweetwater had representatives for all the different brands of equipment that they sell. I got to talk to guys from Blue and Shure which sure taught me a lot. I even got to purchase a few things.  I’ll talk about those in a later post.

The sessions were the real goldmine for me was the sessions.  I went to one session in particular that was sponsored by AVID Media.  A very knowledgeable man name Brian was leading this particular session.I watched intently how he showed us with incredible ease how he and a co-worker put together a commercial for Audi by adding music to the video that Audi provided. As I was watching all I could think was: I HAVE to get this guy in to talk to my elementary students!!!! I’m sure they’ve never even contemplated this type of musical activity as a career. But here’s the problem….Brian is from California and IW is never going to be able to afford to get him to come to visit our school.  Sooooooooo tech to the rescue!!!

After the session was over I approached Brian and explained my situation.  Then I asked if he know about Skype.  He did.  YAY! So next came the BIG question….Would he be willing to do a short presentation to my 3rd graders about how he put together this commercial and how his musical understanding came into play in the creative process? Brian looked unsure at first but then said, “Sure, why not!” Wooo Hoooo!!!!! THIS is why I believe in spending time learning about all these new techie things.  If I hadn’t been experimenting myself with other members of my PLN then I never would have been willing to make this new connection and feel confident that I could make it work. I can’t wait to see my students’ horizons expanding when they meet Brian this year. Now I’ve just got to figure out when would be a good time to tie this into the curriculum.

It’s going to be a year FULL of learning in the IW Elementary Music Room!!

End of the year student reflections

This year I tried something new during my last few days of music classes.  I had each grade level review the most exciting things we had done in music that year.  Then each section of a class got to look at the list, vote on the 2 most exciting and write a paragraph as a class describing the event or project.  I managed to get the whole project done in one class period of 25 minutes. 

We wrote our ideas on the Smartboard and edited as a class.  I could tell the 3rd graders have been working on writing a good paragraph in language class.  They made sure they had things like topic sentences!  The second and first graders just basically went with whatever order the sentences came out of their mouths.  I did go back and so some basic editing to make things a little more understandable after class was over but for the most part all I did was cut from Word and paste into WordPress. 

I was really amazed at how willing the kids were to recall very specific things about our learning this year for this short project. You’ll see that especially in the 2nd and 3rd grade posts. The 2nd graders had a very good recollection of specific instruments and their families, which was a main focus of our classes this year.  The 3rd graders even went so far as to try and remember all the names of the songs from their Christmas Musical this year!

The hurdle to doing this as a class is that inevitably there are a few kids who just try to “zone out” and not participate actively in the discussion and writing.  I think that my last class of 3rd graders may have provided me with a way to avoid that however. 

Dear Student: Trust me please. (Choosing a Solo)

I’ve always been a teacher that tries to whittle big projects down into smaller more manageable chunks for my students.  This helps them to achieve things they never even imagined was possible. Often students find large tasks overwhelming.  So breaking the project down into mini assignments always helps. 

I did this when it came time for my Middle School Chorus kids to learn solos.  I required each student to learn a solo during the Contest season.  The student could decide if they wanted to perform it for a judge at contest or not but EVERYONE learned a solo to sing for a grade in front of me.  When I started this policy early in my career it was because I had group of chorus students who were unduly afraid of singing for a judge.  Even the students who had no problems with pitch-matching or shyness were not willing to take a song to contest. So I thought if I could encourage everyone to try, then maybe a few of them would change their mind at the end of the project and sing their piece for a judge. 

So we began…… Each student was assigned at piece to sing.  Yes, assigned!  Why?  You see, given the choice to choose their own song the students will most likely request songs they are listening to on the radio.  There are some problems inherent in this.

  1. Many of the songs students listen to on the radio do not have appropriate lyrics to sing at contest. 
  2. The manner their favorite artist sings is often completely inappropriate for a contest setting.  Judges at contest are looking for things like proper singers diction and focused tone.  Most popular singers do not worry about either of these. 
  3. Singing only popular music at contest requires the school district to buy new music every year which gets expensive.  
  4. Popular songs often sound completely different with an acoustic piano accompaniment .  There won’t be a bass guitar and drum set backing the student up at contest.
  5. Often the student does not take into account the pitch range of the song which can mean that some of the notes are just not singable for some students.  
  6. The student already knows the tune!  Where’s the challenge in that?

If the educator guides the whole process beginning with the choice of music there are more learning opportunities for the student.  When I look at pieces for each student I’m considering so many things that the average student doesn’t even perceive.

  1. What’s the range of the song?  If it’s for a young man – is there voice changed or unchanged?  If his voice is changed does he need to further develop his low or high range?  Or maybe the student needs to work out a smooth transition between head and chest voice.
  2. How long are the phrases?  The first year contest kids usually need something with 4 to 6 measure phrases so we can begin to really work out what it means to take a good deep breath for producing a consistently pleasing tone.  The older kids who’ve been to contest before might be ready to tackle some 8 or 10 measure phrases.
  3. Does the piano accompaniment mirror the vocal line?  Stronger singers can deal with a song that has a completely independent vocal line.  Less experienced singers will find comfort in hearing their pitches in the piano part.
  4. What’s the dynamic structure of the song?  Singing soft for extended periods is not the best idea for an inexperienced singer as they often don’t understand that soft singing requires more air support not less.
  5. What’s the tempo of the piece?  If a student is new to contest and is having trouble sustaining pitch correctly perhaps a more up-tempo piece with some crisp consonants is called for so he or she can have a successful contest experience.
  6. What’s the language?  That’s right, my middle school students sing in foreign languages!  Sometimes singing in an unfamiliar language is just the challenge an advanced student needs.  Sometimes having a student sing in another language is the method I use to correct their diction.  Since they don’t have any Italian words in their ear they sing them the way I tell them to so they don’t have  any bad habits to unlearn. 
  7. What’s the story of the song?  Some kids really identify with the aesthetics of music.  Those students need a song that will help them express something that they never felt comfortable expressing before.  Or perhaps the student needs a song where they can step outside of themselves and pretend to be someone else for a few minutes.
    Now I know what my first students thought at first.  “Geez!  Mrs. Muench is such a control freak and she won’t let me choose any good music!”   I often told them that I didn’t need to teach them the music on the radio because they already knew that.  My job is to teach them things they don’t know.  And after that first year of multiple students successes the students were more willing to work with me on what I thought would be best for their particular voice.  Each contest season I also tried to express to them why I choose a particular song for them.  This helped the student to assess their own progress.  And it gave them a window into what sorts of things they could look for in a solo piece.  After a couple of years of going through the process I did give the students the ability to choose their solos in tandem with me by 8th grade if they wanted to. 
    It seems so unfair to me to throw a 11 year old student into the wide unfamiliar ocean of Contest Solo Singing!  Please, at least, give them the life raft of your knowledge as a teacher – Help them to choose an appropriate song!!!

saving takes time

You’d think after 12 years of teaching I would remember how looooooong it takes to do things on the network with my 1st graders.  But sometimes I forget.  You see, my kids are really good at finding their favorite links on my Delicious page or at using Groovy Shapes on the SmartBoard.  So when we were working on saving our own copy of a file to the networked music folder I thought 5 minutes of the 20 minute class ought to be plenty of time to get everyone’s file saved.  But I forgot that we’ve NEVER done this before. 

So what ended up happening was that I spent 5 minutes being really stressed out that my first 2 classes couldn’t seem to get the files that they had just created saved into the correct location.  But I’m happy to report that I finally wised up a bit by the third group of first graders! 

With this group before we did any work we saved the file with the student’s name.  First we did it together as a class with me working off the Smartboard.  Then I brought up the folder where everyone’s file should have been.   Any students whose names where in the folder could then proceed to work on their file or they could help their neighbor save into the correct folder.  The key is that no one was allowed to do any work until their name appeared in the folder I had open on the board.  By the end of the class everyone had a file created and that meant that when there was 2 minutes until they had to leave I could just say, “Click the disk to save” because we had already aimed the file into the right folder.  This was much easier and less stressful! 

By the way – my first graders have no idea what a disk is because they’ve never seen disk!  Maybe it’s time to rethink the icon we use to indicate “save”.

A letter to the editor for Music in Our Schools Month

Happy Music In Our Schools Month!

Do you remember how your elementary music classes looked? When I think back to my own elementary music classes we did A LOT of singing and some learning of rhythms but mostly we did a lot of singing. This type of elementary music class was basically a training ground for the band and chorus. So if you weren’t interested in playing an instrument or singing then music could have been a pretty uninteresting class. Luckily for me I was interested in singing but some of my friends were not. The music classes I took in elementary were very narrow in focus but that is no longer the case for today’s music students.

What are young musicians in Iroquois West doing right now? At the elementary buildings there are many exciting projects going on. The first graders have been really busy exploring rhythms. They have been composing their own songs using quarter and eighth notes. The second graders have been investigating the instruments of the orchestra. To that end, they are completing movies of interviews with each instrument. The kindergarten classes are busy preparing original musical plays to the story of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff. Third grade just won an award for their participation on a project with a group of 5th graders in Chicago! The 3rd graders are also busy choreographing a square dance to the popular country song “Bob that Head” by Rascal Flatts.

Now an elementary music class is more about exposing students to all the different facets of music. We don’t just sing anymore. We play drums and boomwhackers. We use the computer to compose. We dance and we make movies. But the most important change in elementary music education is that now we try to incorporate ways to let the student be creative with the information they are learning. We don’t just learn how to square dance. We write our own dance! We don’t just play rhythms. We compose short pieces using what we know! We don’t just learn about the instruments. We use our knowledge to make a movie! By giving the students an opportunity to superimpose their own ideas on to the subject, we give the student a chance to become drawn into the subject itself.

Music is factual, true. Kids can know what family an instrument belongs to and why. Or they can know that E is on the bottom line of the treble staff. However generally speaking, facts aren’t what draw a person into a subject matter. Personal interaction with the subject is what makes learning a worthwhile endeavor. Sure, that’s a violin and it’s in the string family but do you LIKE violins? Does the sound of one calm you down or annoy you? Can violins only play classical music? Could you play a violin? Would you even want to? The process of answering questions like these is how our students begin to have a more complete understanding of music. Those personal questions of how the music affects you can be addressed in this more project based approach (writing musicals and short compositions) to teaching music.

This change in way that music is presented to our elementary students helps the students to realize that even if you don’t ever want to play in the band or sing in the chorus that music still has something to offer them in every day life. Do I hope that by exposing students to all the different facets of music that they will want to learn how to sing or play an instrument? You bet! My hope is that music class will inspire many students to find a way to their own individual way to be musical. Band and chorus are great musical outlets.

And remember you don’t have to sound great right away to try making music. You just have to want to try! The music teachers in our schools are trained to help you become a better musician. We can teach you what you need to know. You just need to provide the desire and the time to put into practice what we will teach you.

What it comes down to is this: Music is part of who we are as humans – everyone has music in them! I am so proud to be a part of a school district where each student has an opportunity to explore this musical part of being human. As a community of learners’ only good things will blossom from the care to we give to the music programs at IW. Thank you being willing to support the growth of the whole student in our district!

Sincerely,

Brenda D Muench

Iroquois West k-3 Music Educator

Reflections on ICE

Over the weekend I tried really, really hard to come up with some new ideas that I had been exposed to while at the ICE conference.  I remember coming back last year (which was also my first year of attendance) thinking, “Holy Cow!!! There’s so many cool things I didn’t even know about that are FREE!  Is there any way I can work all this into my teaching?”

This year I can’t think of any one new idea that really hit me as earth shattering.  Why is that I wonder?  Well first of all I’ve really started to work diligently to create a PLN using tools like this blog and Plurk.  By connecting myself this way I essentially get all those new and fantastic ideas as they become available in real time.  I don’t really need to go to a conference each year to find out those new ideas and products.  I already know about Wordles and Podcasting and Voicethreads.   I did occasionally find a new way of using these tools but I did not come back home feeling overwhelmed with new ideas.

This leads me to wonder further then if I can do all this learning online is going to a conference like ICE really all that important?  The answer for me is a resounding YES!  This was only the second year I have attended ICE and because of my PLN I traveled 2 hours north knowing that people from all over the US were looking forward to meeting me at the conference.  I felt like someone who had been coming to this conference for years – all due to my contributions in my PLN during the year.  It was a fantastic feeling.

I remember going to IMEA music conference my first year of teaching and feeling a little depressed that perhaps I would get there and I wouldn’t have anyone to eat supper with at night, no one to talk to after the conference sessions were over.  And yep, that is exactly what happened.  I didn’t have any connections at that conference yet.  It took me about 7 years of going before I really felt like I had comrades there.  So it is even more amazing to me then that in only my 2nd year of ICE attendance I have “peeps”.  Wouldn’t it be the most fantastic thing if this same experience could be replicated for other new attendees each year?  This year I was looking forward to hearing exactly how Jen’s move was going, how Kymberli’s kid was feeling, and how Jennifer enjoyed her trip to her favorite state of IL.  I was excited to see them in person for the first time to put a 3D face with their 2D avatar in my brain.  I was looking forward to hearing more about their struggles with tech and in life in general.

These connections are what the conference is becoming about for me.  I know that these people love kids and can be trusted to answer my questions with out judgement.  I know that no matter what topic I need to address one or more of them will have experience with it.  I know those strange things like hosting my own blog or starting up Google Apps for Education that scare me just a little can be best addressed at a face to face meeting during a conference.  So I find myself coming to these events with a list of things that I want to get one on one help with.  I also find these face to face meetings are a great place to discuss those high and lofty ideas.   At a face to face meeting I get to hear the vocal inflections and see the facial expressions that let me know where the areas which each of my PLN colleges are truly invested.   And amazingly in discussing these big ideas I can begin to have a better understanding of where I am truly invested.

During this conference I came to a firm realization that I am concerned that no one appears to be teaching our students how to produce a POSITIVE digital foot print.  I realized this in the middle of a conversation with Kevin H. Where are the teachers in my area that are showing students how to create and post things that they can be proud of later on?  Where is the person who is saying not just, “Don’t put pictures of yourself drinking on your MySpace page!”  but also “Have you thought about how your MySpace page could be something that is more than clean?  It COULD be a huge bulletin board of what makes you the coolest thing since sliced bread!”  Where is that teacher?  Why aren’t there more of them?  THIS is the kind of teachers our students need to have to succeed in a digital world, our world, today, now!  Scare tactics don’t work.  Most kids (and adults) don’t really ever think that a silly thing like a picture of you could have horrible repercussions.  We need to be giving students alternative information to post, because they are going to post something.  They need guidance and ideas and a positive role model who is already using their digital footprint responsibly.

I am ready to be that teacher and ICE has reminded me of this.

007 Educators

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had someone ask me, “How do you find all this stuff?  Did you take a class or something?”  Or another one of my favorites, “How do you have time to do all this stuff?”  Are you ready?  I’m going to tell you my secret…….

The secret is I love learning!  I live in a very rural area and their just aren’t a lot of professional development opportunities.  So I had to start creating some of my own.  Thankfully the internet exists so that I can do that.  Do I really have the time to learn all this technology stuff?  Well, I think so but that’s partly because I’m so passionate about it.  So I choose to FIND the time to be at my computer exploring new things every night.  That being said I know many educators feel that finding the time in their already busy day to learn about technology is a

Mission Impossible.

(can’t you hear the theme music playing?)

I understand completely!  So please use the internet to your best advantage.

Start out using an RSS reader like Google Reader to subscribe to a few really good blogs.  Here’s a great list from Mrs. Smoke to get you started.  Other educators have already started grappling with whatever issue you are thinking about.  You just ahve to find them.  Start reading those blogs and you’ve taken out some of the steps toward finding a solution.  Why start at step one on every issue?  If you utilize your Reader the the info comes to you instead of you going to hunt it down.

Next, sign up for a social bookmarking tool like Diigo or Delicious and use it!  How many times have you been looking for your favorite resource only to remember you bookmarked it on your computer at home and you can’t get to it from the computer you are on?  What a waste!  No more will this be an issue for you!  Your bookmarks are on the net with these FREE services and you can get to them anywhere any time (well as long as you can remember your user name and password)  Plus as an added bonus if you get your colleges to sign up for accounts you can now search their bookmarks too!  Why should you be the one doing all the hard work?  Share I say!!  Need a resource on internet safety?  Search everyone’s bookmarks on Delicious or Diigo – you’ll find more than you could ever use.

Now that you’re really grooving…..Why not take the big plunge and start microblogging at Twitter or Plurk?  You’ll find there are many other educators on these services already.  Microblogging is a great way to find out about things as they are happening.  And it’s a fantastic way to ask for help when you can’t find that really great feature of Google Docs you saw demonstrated at that conference last month. While you’re at it throw up a link to that really great website you just stumbled across.  Someone out there will be so glad you shared.

The point is that I try to use my time wisely.  I’m using all these services to get the information coming to me, when I need it.  I don’t have time to visit 50 different websites everyday to see if they have posted anything new and interesting and neither do you.  So don’t!  Use your time to read the information you have coming to you and ponder how you could use it to change the way you teach.  See this really isn’t all that impossible after all!  You just have to be (there’s that theme music again!)

a 007 Educator!